Consuming
by Fortune Spirit
Summary: This darkness was getting harder and harder to dispel... perhaps he should just embrace it?


Screaming, crying, pleading… That's all he heard. They echoed around the empty void of his head. No matter how many times he told himself that he'd lost all ability to feel anything for others, he was always thrown for a loop when he finally let his frazzled mind settle only to be haunted by the terror of his victims' voices.

Was it only their voices that bothered him? No. Even more disturbing than their screeches were the flashes of how he'd left them; mangled and beaten beyond recognition, strewn about rural and urban backdrops alike in horrific works of art. Sometimes, it'd be quick – their throats would be slit from ear to ear, leaving their broken bodies with crooked grins carved into their necks. Sometimes, he'd take his sweet time, relishing the moment his claws slashed through their flesh, the feeling of their still warm blood on his hands, in sick glee. He'd even leave them to bleed out and die while he watched from afar, a twisted grin curving his lips as he watched their pitiful attempts to call for help or crawl away.

The contraries between his state of mind in the moment, before the kill, and afterwards troubled him greatly. How he could go from sadistic laughter one minute to sorrowful horror the next was beyond him.

He stared down at his trembling hands, thoroughly soaked with the blood of his latest prey. In some areas of his hands, where it was still wet, the blood dripped off his gloves like demented rain. In other places, it had dried into a brownish-red. He refrained from vomiting as he shakily removed the once white, cotton gloves, now ruined by irremovable stains. He threw them to the floor in displeasure and leaned against the wall. His breathing was unsteady. He glared at his forearms, the blood having reached further up his arms than he had previously thought, and all he wanted to do was burn himself in his own sinful fire. Unfortunately, he couldn't die. He'd tried. Oh, how he'd tried.

Sleepless nights with a knife. Exhausted mornings with a bottle of miscellaneous pills. Crappy afternoons with a gun. Shitty evenings with a noose. He'd tried it all, in every way imaginable, but they always ended in the same way.

Unforgettable hours spent bent over in agony, vomiting up blood into a toilet because his attempts proved futile. Every. Single. Time.

Painful, nauseating and hopeless. Every time he failed to kill himself, he ended up back at square one – life. A shitty, miserable life, but life none the less. Nothing was capable of curing him from life; not blood loss, not overdose, not a bullet to the head. Even the snapping of his neck didn't work, he'd just wake up after an immeasurable amount of time and run straight back to the toilet once more. In the end, he simply gave up trying. The pain meant nothing if he wouldn't eventually feel the release of death.

He tore his gaze from his arms, refusing to look at them again. Now, more than ever, as he reviewed the battered body merely twelve paces from where he stood, he wanted to die. It made him sick to replay the moment in his mind. His head had other plans for him though, forcing him to see what he had done to the poor man in vivid detail as it all came rushing back.

He had gone Dark… His form was unrecognisable to anyone. Which is why, when he had landed in front of his newest target, the man screamed and ran. Although, he couldn't place if it was his soulless white eyes, wide, toothy grin or swirling purple-blue aura that had terrified the man most – perhaps it was a combination of the three.

He'd cornered the man in an empty alleyway after chasing him for several minutes and, after a few swift punches to his stomach, had winded the man enough to stop him from running any further. The sound of breaking bone as his red and white sneaker connected with the man's skull was absolutely revolting. His prey had fallen back with a thud after that hit and he took that as his opportunity to grab him by the arm, claws digging deep into his skin, and toss him into the air. After which, he promptly flew up alongside him, caught him and swiped at his chest several times. He then proceeded to drop the man to the floor again. This was followed by another audible thump.

He placed his sneaker against the temple of the whimpering man. The wail of his victim was cut short as the sole of his shoe came down upon his unprotected head with a horrifying crunch and squelch. The last sound he uttered was a horrible gurgling sound as he let out his last breath. The blood left behind on his shoes and hands, though washable, would never truly go away. He shuddered. Neither would the memory.

Even now, after his psychotic episode, with his fur back to its regular royal blue shine, he didn't recognise the hedgehog staring back at him from the depths of the puddle by his feet. His emerald eyes, though belonging to his person, felt foreign to him as they stared back hollowly.

Nothing felt right anymore. _He_ didn't feel right.

He wasn't Sonic the Hedgehog, hero of Mobius anymore. He was nobody but another one of the fucked-up somebodies prowling the dank streets.

After all, the darkness was infectious… it was **consuming**.

(So, yeah... new story. Not sure if I physically _can _continue this. But, hey, if you guys end up liking it, I'm sure I'll find away - perhaps I could explain what exactly is going on in another chapter or just continue here from this scene...? Whatever. It would be great to hear you guys' thoughts on this, seeing your comments makes me feel fantastic and more inclined to continue something. Alright, bye-ee!

~Fortune)


End file.
